Wednesday, April 22, 2009

My new friend....


No not really a friend. I now know why my backyard is a lumpy mess. Far Side of Fifty gave our family some really serious discussion about this creature. I had to search forever to finally find a picture of it.
Some of you already know this but I only saw them in Minnesota. It is a thirteen lined ground squirrel. I have owned my property for thirty two years and this is the first time I have ever seen one in my yard ever.
I ran across an Iowan garden web blog while searching for answers and we Iowans are dumb. I thought it was a Minnesota gopher, dumb huh? It looked like some of the cartoon characters that they use for that. . The thread never figured it out. I think the web is too old for me to tell them what it is. They were trying to call them squinny squirrels as I have yet to find a photo on the net for that either.
Anyway, I have a mess in my yard and I don't kill animals unless it is a mouse in my house. I will take a deep breath now, since I finally found the answer. I was thinking I needed to till the entire back yard and replant as bad as it was looking. I was blaming my border collie for the turf problem.
If you don't know me very well, I am always willing to admit my ignorance and I love to learn. This new revelation will give me a big problem to solve. Thanks for reading...
Oh yes, thanks Far Side for your input. You are a good friend to have.
Thanks to Erin for having me change it from twelve to thirteen. I now know why I need to be checked into a nursing home.

2 comments:

Erin said...

I can't believe you've never seen these! We used to have so many in our backyard growing up that my dad tried everything - pouring water down the holes, etc., which I don't agree with, because I'm an animal lover!

I've never heard of a twelve-lined, but thirteen.

Far Side of Fifty said...

Great post..up here we just lump them all together and call them Chipmunks..or chippies. Our Border Collie chases them up trees..they are sometimes destructive buggers..Blue Herons eat them:)